Conflicts over farmland and its socioeconomic effects on rural residents of Southwestern Nigeria

Land is increasingly becoming a source of conflicts in Nigeria and Africa at large where land access had traditionally been characterised as relatively unrestricted. This paper examined conflicts over farmland and its socio economic effects on the rural residents of southwestern Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 160 respondents for the study. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire and analysed using descriptive statistics. Findings revealed that the major causes of conflict over farmland in the area were failure to respect boundary (x 1.66± 0.58), contesting for the inheritance of land boundary (x 1.65±0.65) and abandonment of the previously accepted rules of access to and use of land (x 1.09± 0.63). Farmland conflicts terminates the social interaction and peaceful co-existence of people (x 1.65±0.48), causing mistrust among members (x 1.61±0.49), destruction of goods and property (x 1.57± 0.50) and loss of life (x 1.55±0.57). It was concluded based on the findings that conflict over farmland had negative effects on the socio-economic activities of the rural residents. Consequently, the study recommends that individual and community farm boundaries must be respected.There must be an effective system of land administration of management to reduce frequent challenges of land ownership. Inheritors should be loyal to the agreement made with their progenitors on the use of land and public education/enlightenment programmes must be strengthening to reduce the adverse effect of conflicts over farmland.